Keeping the Peace

[Hamilton Calder]

(Solo.)

The beaten criminal groaned pitiably through a split lip and broken teeth as the cell door slammed shut behind him. Whether the sound was borne of despair or pain, Calder wasn't sure. He hadn't intended to hurt the man during the arrest, but, like so many other times, there'd been little choice in the matter. Reaching down to his belt, the swordsman produced a wicked-looking butterfly knife and dropped it onto the desk by the door, alongside the papers that were being meticulously filled out by a seated official. "He had this with him."

The inspector, a stout and bearded man of perhaps thirty-five, glanced up, noticing for the first time the blood staining Calder's right sleeve. His eyes flickered up to the weary mercenary's face with concern, but his words remained professional. "It's yours if you want it, of course."

Calder shook his head, smiling through the dull throb in his arm. He patted the longsword hanging easily at his left hip. "I've no use for it anyway. Give it to your sons to play with."

The guard laughed, laying down his pen. "Calder, what are you doing here? These thieves are beneath you, my friend. This is, what, the fourth bounty you've collected in the two weeks since you bought that sword? Before tonight we'd been after Keryn there for nearly two months, and that knife of his has the blood of three good officers on it. Even after five years of fishing, you're still sharp." He leaned back, smiling. "We both know you've got enough in that pouch of yours for a trip to Corone, where they've got real work befitting a man of your talents. What's keeping you in Scara Brae?"

Calder sighed, and straddled a stool across the desk from the guardsman. "I need more money, Bronson. It's not Corone I'm aiming at. There's nothing for me there, anymore. I'll stay there only as long as I need to, long enough to make a name for myself and gather the things I'm going to need, and then it's on... on to Raiaera."

Bronson started, then leaned forward, eyeing Calder over steepled hands. His lively voice was suddenly serious. "Raiaera? Calder, for heaven's sake, you must be joking. You know as well as I do what's going on there right now. Eluriand is a ruin, and the country as a whole not much better off."

The mercenary was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice had changed considerably. "I can't run from the past forever, Bronson. You know that as well as I do. I've been trying for five years - swore I'd never touch a blade again, remember? You saw me throw that damnable sword into the ocean. Some things just need to be done."

The guard leaned back. "So that's it, then. Revenge."

Calder shook his head, then paused. "No, not entirely, although that's a part of it. I just feel like I need to finish what I started." He grinned. "I'm a hell-blasted fool, aren't I. Going off to get myself killed."

The shorter man reached for his pen again. "If anyone can bring him down, my friend, it's you, but you're going to need more gold than what you've got. Maybe you can pay someone to beat some sense into you." He reached down under the desk and produced a small sack of coin. "There you are, fifty Corone Standard. Don't spend it all in one place."

The tall mercenary collected his bounty, and weighed the sack in one hand despairingly. "Is that honestly all? He was the highest bounty left on the board! Am I going to be stuck at ten a head for Scourge cutpurses now? You know I don't like killing when I don't need to."

Bronson frowned thoughtfully. "That's the problem with being a bounty hunter, you know - if you do your job too well, you put yourself out of work." He rifled through a stack of papers at his elbow. "You're too good to waste on Scourge lowlifes, though. Let's see if I can find something a little more in line with - ah!" He triumphantly pulled a sheet out of the middle of the pile and waved it in Calder's hopeful face. "Two hundred if you do a good job, which I know you will. A bit more obscure than Scourge cutthroats at the docks, but I think you can manage. If you're interested."

Calder was interested.

[Hamilton Calder]

The sound of the riot was close, now, and drawing steadily closer. Voices shouting, mostly, punctuated intermittently by shattering glass or, more grimly, the sharp report of steel striking steel. The horse Calder had been loaned, a smallish bay whose name he had already forgotten, seemed to know something wasn't right. It took all of his limited skills as a rider to urge his mount forward, until finally, rounding the corner at Treasure Ship Row, his destination came into view.

The crowd of rioters milling about the market square was unruly and dangerous - Calder's trained eye easily picked out the Watch Post at the near end of the square, defended stoutly by a line of armored Watchmen who indiscriminitely skewered any rioters who approached too close. Two or three of the market stalls had already been burnt, and the common house on the North end of the square - the Lady's Slipper, if Calder remembered rightly - was brightly ablaze, sending a column of white smoke into the blue afternoon sky. Most of the civilians had already fled; those that hadn't were cowering under stalls or benches, trying to avoid the kicks and taunts of the rioters.

The criminals themselves were poorly armed and disorganized - Calder spotted a few wielding swords or axes, but most made do with clubs or torches. What the mob lacked in efficiency, though, it more than made up for in size. Calder put their numbers at close to a hundred and fifty - certainly enough to dominate the small cadre of ten or so Watchmen that had been patrolling the market. While he doubted they had the resolve enough to break through the Watch's battle line and burn down the Post proper, he knew that wasn't their intent anyway. Already the looting had started, wholesale - most of the merchandise from the market stalls that could be carried off already had, and as he looked across the square two rioters emerged from the flaming common house carrying a hefty keg of what was probably very fine whiskey.

Dismounting, Calder gave his unnamed horse a solid slap. The beast, happy to be allowed to flee the scene, bounded back off toward its stable at the Guard Headquarters in the middle of town. Drawing his sword, Calder set off at a run, hoping he could cover the forty or so yards that separated him from the relative safety of the Guard Post before the rioters realized he was there.

He almost made it.